This journal started out, in January 2007, as the Newham Council CIO's Blog for ICT staff, and its source is still Newham's Intranet.
Since April 2008 I have been seconded for the majority of my time as President of the Society of IT Management. Among my aims, as Socitm's President, are to foster greater transparency and accountability in the operation of the Society's business, and a President's Blog is an obvious tool towards the achievement of these goals.

Monday, 23 June 2008

Monday 23rd June

The Tropicana is the biggest hotel in New Jersey, with accommodation in four towers – you have to go through the Casino to move between them. Atlantic City is one of the three major US gambling resorts, along with Las Vegas and Reno. Its version of "the Strip" is the Boardwalk, which stretches for miles along the beach linking the various casinos and hotels. Whilst not so well known as Las Vegas, some of its Hotels/ Casinos, like the Tropicana, are on a similar scale, and it includes a number of the big names like Caesar's Palace and Trump.

New Jersey is the most densely populated state of the Union (locals speak all the time about their congested roads – they should give the M25 a try sometime) but there are also more black bears per capita in New Jersey than any other state!

David Pogue – the Technology Correspondent for the New York Times was the key-note speaker – one of the best I've seen. He is also a prolific author (has written or contributed to seven books in the "for dummies" series) and in a "previous life" was a musician and Music Director, of which more anon. His presentation was mainly on social networking phenomena. I've always thought that one of the things that does set Britons apart from our American friends is our ability to not take ourselves too seriously, and to poke fun at ourselves (although Chris always tells me I'm an exception to the rule) but David's presentation contained a lot of humour that will really appeal to the British. I can't capture that here, but some of the points I thought worth recording were:

Microsoft bought 1.6% of Face Book for $240m.

Google bought You Tube for $1.7bn. 12 months after its launch by two college graduates.

The inventor of a virtually fat-free alternative for lard – "Z-Trim" - was on the verge of a big deal with Nestlé, when a blogger visited financial columns saying it was shown to cause cancer in rats. Nestlé cancelled the deal. The inventor eventually traced the author of these stories – a Short Seller (betting that a stock would go down).

The "Lonely Girl 15" sensation, which actually "starred" an unknown Australian Actress in a Hollywood "teaser".

"Civility enforced" – prospective ethical code.

Some of the other sites David mentioned that are worthy of checking-out include:

As I mentioned, David is an accomplished musician, and he finished his act playing the piano as he sang his alternative versions of songs – such as "I got you, Tube"!

The next session was collaborating to win, facilitated by David Pogue & David Molchany, Deputy County Executive of Fairfax County, Virginia, who has previously spoken at a London Connects conference. I found it interesting that Fairfax County has a Team scanning media such as Blogs looking for references to itself, and deciding whether, and how, to respond in the name of maintaining good Public Relations. Independently of the municipality, www.allfairfax.com was established to report on what's going-on in the county, but the municipality adapted its use of facilities like RSS feeds to provide effective support of the medium. Fairfax County also uses Wikis, internally, for staff information and is mandated to use social networking media in the planning of its 2009 budget. Its IT Plan, which I have always monitored since seeing David speak at London Connects) can be found at its web-site www.fairfaxcounty.gov

The GMIS conference planning Team, from Government Authorities across the US, used Microsoft Groove (which incorporates "presence" – a real boon, I think, to remote collaboration) to organise the conference.

The "Think About It" film in my presentation seemed to make a real hit.

In the evening there was a "magical strolling buffet dinner" at the Atlantic City Aquarium.

Back at the Casino, Chris won $27 on the slots, for a $10 bet. Her stake for tomorrow!

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About socitm

The Society of Information Technology Management was founded in 1986 as the professional association for ICT managers working in and for the public sector.

Members are drawn primarily from local authorities but also from the police and fire services, housing authorities and other locally delivered public service.

Managers or consultants from organisations supplying ICT products and services to the public sector, or which support public services in other ways, may also join the Society.

With over 1900 members from 550 different organisations including 98% of all UK local authorities, Socitm provides a widely respected forum for the promotion, use and development of ICT best practice. It also plays a leading role in the implementation of local e-government in the UK.

The Society is a significant provider of advice and guidance on ICT and e-government to local authorities. Socitm offers a growing range of services including publications, conferences, events, training, research and consultancy.